New episodes of season 2 of The last of us Every Sunday evening premiered on HBO, and Ars' Kyle Orland (who played the games) and Andrew Cunningham (who does not have it), will talk about them here after they have been broadcast. Although these summaries do not go into every plot point of the episode, there are clear heavy spoilers Inside, so first look at the episode if you want to go fresh.
Kyle: We start this episode from the perspective of a group of highly armed Fedra agents in 2018 Seattle, which shoot the shit in a transport that somehow still has usable gasoline. Perhaps it is just the political moment in which we find ourselves, but I was not entirely emotionally prepared for this militarized characters in my post-apocalyptic escape show to start casually with “voters” as an ironic significant for ordinary people.
“Lol, as we had ever let them vote, Amirite?”
Andrew: We spent so little time with Fedra-the disadvantage after the summary of what the American government had once been the first episodes of the show that you can forget exactly why almost every other person and organization in the world of the show hatred and wants nothing to do with it. But here is a memory for us: informal cruelty, performed by ignorant fascists.
Of course as soon as you see and hear Jeffrey Wright, you know he will be a man (he is a HBO aluin of Boardwalk Empire And WestworldUnder many, many other film, TV, vocal and theater performances). He betrays just as casually and blows the transport full of jump-up Fedra Jarheads, which tell a clear prestige TV stories. Here is a man with a code, but also a man to be feared.
Kyle: Yes, the background story of Isaac was only widely shot in the games, so it was pretty effective to see this big “who could be seen in the show in the show.
What I found less effective was that Ellie played a very competent A-HA cover when she discovered the abandoned guitar space. In the game it serves as a welcome change of pace of a lot of hectic action and a good excuse for an engaging guitar playing mini game. Here it felt like it just went a bit, with a lot of uncomfortable home on close-ups of Dina's creepy face.
I will … Woe ….. Golen ….. in a day or … Twooooooooo.
Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery
I will … Woe ….. Golen ….. in a day or … Twooooooooo.
Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery
Andrew: You know, however, I appreciate that the show has at least made an attempt to explain why this 30-year-old guitar was still in unspoilt state. Not directly Buy that the silica pack packages (which Ellie wisely does not eat) would have lasted so long in the guitar cabinet, but at least she has not pulled a moss -like guitar straight off the wall and starts to vote. Those strings will corrode! That neck is going to warp!
I also think that the show (and the game, I think, picking up your context instructions) has gone away with choosing one of the Goofiest songs that they could possibly read that would still read as “soulful and emotionally resonating” when they were played solo on acoustic guitar. But I suppose that has always been the power of that specific instrument.
Kyle: Both the game and the show have leaned heavily on the nostalgia from the 1980s that Joel passed to Ellie, and as a child of the 1980s I will be damned if I said it doesn't work on me at that level.
Andrew: It is also for what it is worth, exactly what a beginner-to-intermediary guitarist will know how to do. If I find a guitar during an apocalypse, all people can come out of me in the mid-2000s of radio singles with easy chord progressions. It is a pity that society in this reality did not last long enough to produce 'boulevard of broken dreams'.
Kyle: Not to reduce “guitar talk”, but the show cuts it down with a scary scene from Isaac who talks about high-end cooking utensils with an initially unseen companion on the floor. The resulting scene of torture is, for my money, much worse than most everything we are exposed to in the games – and these are games that are not exactly showing off the showing of scenes of torture and extreme violence!
Felt for me as if they were benefiting from the reputation of HBO for graphic content only because they could do that here …
Andrew: Absolutely free! But not completely without telling stories. I think if you set Isaac as a miniboss on the way to the dramatic confrontation with Abby in the middle season, you should make it especially clear that it is capable of truly filthy things. Of course, killing a truck of boys is also bad, but it was boys we as viewers should all hate. The torture of a defenseless man strengthens the perception of him as someone who does Ellie and Dina not I want to meet each other, especially now that they have beaten some of his boys.
Because Ellie and Dina were unconsciously submitted in the middle of a sort of civil war in Seattle, between Isaac and his militarized WLF members and the facial cultures we met briefly in the middle of the last episode. And although the WLF types seem to have the cult, we are told here that WLF members are slowly switching to the cult (instead of the other way around).
Welcome back to “Jeffrey Wright discusses cooking utensils.” I am Jeffrey Wright. Today we have a very special guest …
Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery
Welcome back to “Jeffrey Wright discusses cooking utensils.” I am Jeffrey Wright. Today we have a very special guest …
Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery
Kyle: I will say that I appreciated the surprisingly convincing history of the “chicken and egg games” beef between the two factions, as discussed between torture and torture victim. Absolutely a memorable piece of world construction.
But then we are quickly back to the type of infected attack scene that now appears to be practically contractually obliged to happen at least once per delivery. At the moment I think that this kind of massive Setpiece Zombie fights would work better as a light herbs than a thick sauce that is dumped on us every week.
Andrew: People in and out of Seattle seem to have a unique gift to make sleeping swarms infected otherwise! I know that we will eventually come back to it, but I was more intrigued by the unveiling of the first episode of more strategic infected who seemed to retain more of their human characteristics than I from these screaming brainless hordes. Here I think that the tension is also artificially refurbished by Ellie's weird escape strategy, which the two must lead by a series of dead -end and dead -end road before finally, hardly, getting away.
But as you said, I have to have zombies on the zombie show! And it finally discovers the “Dina that Ellie is immune” shoefall, although Dina does not seem ready to think about one of the other implications of that unveiling. She has her own stuff by hand!
Kyle: Yes, I had to resist my tendency to do the external equivalent to bump into the ribs to see if you had picked up the potential explanation of “morning sickness” of Dina's frequent vomiting (which was quite hidden in the midst of the “horrible gore” explanation).
Andrew: It explains a few things! It seems a bit of a narrative shortcut to have invested Ellie extremely in Dina and whether she lives or dies, and given this show I am afraid that this Zygote will only be used to create more trauma for Ellie, instead of giving us a nuanced view of parenting during an apocalypse. But it is sweet to see how enthusiastic and immediately Ellie is invested.
A question for you, while you spoil as little as possible as you can: are we still usually only adjust the game right now? You said that you get more Isaac background story (sometimes the show is spreading well on background stories and sometimes not), and some things have happened a bit out of the order. But my impression is that we have not yet received a complete departure at the Nick Offerman episode last season.
How do we keep coming in this mess?
Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery
How do we keep coming in this mess?
Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery
Kyle: At the moment it is a bit like a jazz riff about what is happening in the game, with a number of pieces copied note for note, some being remarked and thrown in completely different temporary locations, and some fresh new improvisation for a good measure.
I am absolutely not “the game is canon and you have to literally interpret it” type of person, but the loose treatment gives me a little whiplash. The unveiling of Dina's pregnancy, for example, is not greeted with almost as much immediate joy in the games. That said, the moment of Joy Ellie and Dina Doing Sharing here feels transplanted (in tone like nothing else) from an earlier game scene that the show had usually skipped so far. It is like a free association, man. Dig it!
The show also spends an excessive amount of time discussing how pregnancy tests work in post-apocalyps, which pushed past world construction and overexplieting. It's okay to just let things be, you know?
Andrew: It's jazz, man. It's about the zombies you not kill.
However, it has been rearranged, I can still see that I am watching an adjustment of a video game, because there are stealth murders and because important information is transferred through messages and logos that are scribbled in blood on the walls. But I still enjoy myself and do slightly Yoel is missing less minute to minute than the previous episode. Slightly.
The episode ends with Ellie and Dina who hears the name of someone who has the same name as someone who knew Abby about a WLF Walkie-Talkie who they caught, which gives them their next objective marker for Abby Quest. But they have to cross an active war zone to get where they are going (although I could not see from that distance to see if we are able to tell exactly who is fighting who is currently). I think I have to wait!
Kyle: I personally hope that we will see the moment when the Pasbade bisexual Dina finally realizes “What is the deal with all the rainbows.” Show your post-apocalyptic pride, girl!
